Tartine Bakery's Tuna Tartine Recipe

If you've ever gotten the slightest bit interested in the art of making bread, chances are you've heard of Tartine, in San Francisco; they're widely known for making some of the best in the country. But the name Tartine is actually loosely translated as open-faced sandwich, and that's the sort of recipe featured in Edible Selby, a recently published compendium of photographer Todd Selby's whimsical columns regularly published in T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Why I Picked This Recipe: I've been a devoted convert to open-faced sandwiches since spending a year living in northern Europe, where it's the way they do things. The "recipe" in Edible Selby is really just a sentence listing ingredients, but the combination sounded great. So while making this, I was actually setting out to write out a proper recipe.

What Worked: This is essentially a deconstructed tuna salad sandwich with the mayonnaise and tuna separated, and it's wonderful. Big pickled caperberries (the fruit of the same bush that produces capers; they have a more mild flavor) are mixed into the homemade mayonnaise, then spread on crusty toasted bread; it's topped with high-quality tuna, a sprinkle of smoked paprika, and a squeeze of lemon.

What Didn't: Nothing at all—it's a great recipe. Served with a salad, it's a lovely light dinner.

Suggested Tweaks: Depending on your love of capers, you could always dial the amount back, but I find their briny flavor is perfect against unadorned tuna and stands up to the smoky sprinkle of paprika. And one tweak I would NOT suggest: using anything but great quality olive-oil packed tuna. This sandwich is all about that tuna.

This Recipe Appears In

Born and raised in Chicago, one of Blake's earliest food memories was a Chicago-style hot dog with all the toppings. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
As a co-founder of The Paupered Chef And a Serious Eats Contributor since the beginning, Blake has been writing about food regularly since 2006. He currently contributes weekly to Dinner Tonight and writes the Chicago-based column Sausage City. He studied professional cookery at Kendall College in Chicago, and is creative director of Jamco Creative, an outfit in Chicago that specializes in social media marketing.

PREVIEW YOUR COMMENT

HTML Hints

Comment Guidelines

Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more in the Comment Policy section of our Terms of Use page.